Thursday, October 7, 2010

Read the Bill of Rights and indicate which amendment is the most important and defend your choice!

I was given that assignment.

Response:
While every amendment to the constitution of the Unites States is important, the single most important is paradoxically the Second Amendment. The freedom of speech of only truly guaranteed by the capacity of the populace to cast out the tyrants who would quash the freedom of speech/ the freedom of press is safeguarded by the right of publishers to protect their assets. The right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances is prevented from becoming a Tiananmen Square massacre by the right of the people to bear arms. The right to freely exercise ones religion is guarded from giving adversaries a facility for intimidation and extermination as a whole. Without the not so subtly implied threat that an armed populace presents, the protection against quartering of soldiers without consent would be non-existent. No citizen could truly be secure in their persons or property without the capacity to defend themselves or their property. Without the capacity to arm, and by extension defend oneself, a lynch-mob can easily deprive you right to a Grand Jury, or protection against double jeopardy. The protection against secret and long drawn out trials would evaporate ones the First amendment rights were lost. The right to a jury trial would disappear once the Grand jury did. I fully expect all bail to be denied once a puppet court with secret proceedings, no right to counsel, no right to face your accuser has become the operating principle of the justice system. Without the capacity for the people to reform the government whether by voting, the judiciary, or even open and armed revolt; they will become nothing more than subjects.